Facebook admits that the Linux topic crackdown was 'in error' and has been fixed
'Discussions of Linux are allowed on our services,' insists the social media giant.

Facebook's heavy-handed censorship of Linux groups and topics was "in error," the social media juggernaut has admitted. Responding to reports earlier this week, sparked by the curious censorship of the eminently wholesome DistroWatch, Facebook contacted PCMag to say that it had made a mistake and that the underlying issue had been rectified.
"This enforcement was in error and has since been addressed. Discussions of Linux are allowed on our services," said a Meta rep to PCMag. That is the full extent of the statement reproduced by the source. Still, it helps us to dismiss various conspiracy theories about the Silicon Valley establishment feeling threatened by the open source movement. Like most big companies, Meta seems slow to respond and react to gaffes that adversely affect users.
Copenhagen-hosted DistroWatch says it has appealed against the Community Standards-triggered ban shortly after it noticed it was in effect (January 19). PCMag received the Facebook admission of error on January 28. The latest statement from DistroWatch, which now prefers posting on Mastodon, indicates that Facebook has lifted the DistroWatch links ban.
In the above post, DistroWatch notes that it is aware of the supposed lifting of its ban but that the account still seems to be locked. We just checked DistroWatch's Facebook page (so you don't have to). A post yesterday was '403 Forbidden' by Facebook (10 likes), but one about a new BSD release published earlier today seems successful (2 likes).
So, it looks like we have a satisfactory outcome from the situation, though it wouldn't have hurt Facebook to apologize to DistroWatch, among others, publicly. Meanwhile, the reason for the 'Facebook Linux ban' remains a mystery. If we had to put forward a theory behind the ban, it would probably highlight how Facebook is transitioning its fact-checking to an X-like Community Notes model.
Transitions often have teething problems, and Facebook posts a lot of data to its platforms every minute of the day. It is ironic, however, that shifting away from professional fact-checker-driven 'censorship' should result in innocuous discussions of open-source operating systems being so strictly censored on this social media platform.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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COLGeek With the changes made to their rules, I would expect more "in errors" in the future. Users need to be fully aware of what they are being "fed" on this, and similar, platforms. They need to understand how the algorithms work and how they will "double down" on topics.Reply
Feeding non-factual "news", stuffing ads down your throat in an attempt to get your money into someone else's pocket, and platforms for endless scammers has made social media a cesspool for malicious activity.
Please be smart, discerning, and protect yourself when using. -
why_wolf Seems more likely its because FB is turning on a new shadowban system to suppress posts Zuck doesn't like while not officially "banning" them. But the system is too aggressive, possibly some programmer giving us all a hint that its there. Though chances equal the programmers are just that bad at their job.Reply
Please don't forget the "mysterious" banning of words like "democrat" that happened just last week across all Meta platforms. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g32yxpdz0o -
evdjj3j Why does anyone use FB anymore. Every post in my feed is either AI generated pictures or posts by Life Tips.Reply -
davisch The censorship pendulum swings... This is whey we need to be principled and always oppose censorship, regardless of how much we dislike the people speaking (or writing). The reigns will change hands and the powers you cheer for today will be powers you cry because of tomorrow.Reply -
Evildead_666 Today it's Linux stuff, tomorrow its any free speech.Reply
Wake up and smell the roses, ditch FB/IG/anything by them.
Get your "News" elsewhere.
X/Twitter is being lambasted for being "Non Censored".
You should think about that for a bit.
If you're going to be on platforms that prone censorship, just remember who does the censoring (it isn't you ;-) ) -
LibertyWell Uhh Microsft owns a healthy chunk of facebook. They last thing they want is for folks to know there are alternatives to winblows 11Reply -
bit_user
Yeah, it really should give us pause how long it took FB to rectify this, when it has thousands of hard-core Linux users & devs among its employees. I assume some internal advocacy is what ultimately broke the logjam. I wonder what chance other topics face, without such help.Evildead_666 said:Today it's Linux stuff, tomorrow its any free speech.
100%. I can understand using it to communicate with family members who won't use anything else, but for an org like DistroWatch, it seems obvious to me that Mastadon is a better choice.Evildead_666 said:Wake up and smell the roses, ditch FB/IG/anything by them.
Oh, it's censored. Musk only values free speech when it's not about him. Furthermore, it's clear that he views X as a tool for spreading propaganda and disinformation.Evildead_666 said:X/Twitter is being lambasted for being "Non Censored". -
bit_user
That was true maybe 10-20 years ago. Today, Microsoft has their own Linux distro.LibertyWell said:Uhh Microsft owns a healthy chunk of facebook. They last thing they want is for folks to know there are alternatives to winblows 11
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure_Linux
They even contribute directly to the Linux kernel, but it seems their activity has fallen off a bit, lately.
https://lwn.net/Articles/997959/ -
MobileJAD Why on earth does anyone even use Facebook or Twitter anymore? On one hand they are both full of misinformation but also they are full of AI generated crap and bots.Reply -
Joseph_138 Facebook is bleeding users, and is rapidly becoming the next Myspace, and is doing everything they can to stem the outflow.Reply